Chromebook - The thin, fast laptop with 6.5 hour battery for only $249

Thin, Fast, Low Cost
How would you like to get a thin, fast laptop with a 6.5 hour battery for only $249?  Well, the Chromebook is your laptop then.  Google has created the Chrome OS, which is a lightweight operating system designed for people that spend most of their time online and they have put this onto the Chromebook laptop.  Instead of using Windows 7, Windows 8, or the Mac OSX, you are using the Chrome OS, which centers around the Chrome browser.

Web apps
Instead of installing applications on the computer, you "install" them in your Chrome browser.  You can browse applications to install in the Chrome Web Store.  Are you worried that you'll lose all of the applications you are used to using like Microsoft Word or iTunes?  Instead of Microsoft Word, you can use Google Docs for free.  I explain here about using Google Docs and Google Drive instead of Microsoft Office.  Instead of iTunes, you can upload your music to the free Google Music.  There are also lots of other free, web-based applications that you can listen to music with.  If you need to edit pictures, you can use Aviary for Google Drive.  These are just a few examples of the many available, free web applications that you can use instead of the desktop applications that you are used to using.

Free 100GB of online storage
With the purchase of a Chromebook, you also get a free 100GB of Google Drive storage for 2 years.  All of the documents, pictures, music that you store on the Chromebook is synced with you Google Drive and you can access that anywhere you have a web browser and an internet connection.  I pay $2.49 per month for 25GB of Google Drive storage and as I explain here, I was able to save all of the photos I've ever taken thanks to Google Drive store.  Getting 100GB for free is a great deal.

Offline editing
The Chromebook is mostly designed for people that are connected to WiFi all the time.  With WiFi at school, home, coffee shops, and friend's houses, you can pretty much be connected to WiFi almost the entire day.  There may be times when you aren't connected to WiFi though and Google Docs does have offline editing that will allow you to make edits offline and then it will automatically sync the next time you get connected to the internet.

Hardware specs
You can check out the hardware specs here.  The best features of the hardware are the 6.5 hour battery and the solid state drive, which makes the use of the laptop very snappy and a boot time of less than 10 seconds.  The 0.7 inch thickness and weight of 2.5 pounds is also quite nice and makes it a very portable machine.

Wrap up
Is the Chromebook for everyone?  No, it's not.  Is it a cheaper, effective alternative to Windows or Mac laptops?  Yes, it is.